


what happened to that wide-eyed, beautiful little girl you used to be?

by canonlytrans



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Originally Posted Elsewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 05:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19716826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canonlytrans/pseuds/canonlytrans
Summary: an old one-shot from the official warrior forums.





	what happened to that wide-eyed, beautiful little girl you used to be?

_what happened to that wide-eyed, beautiful little girl you used to be?_

you are barely old enough to recognize colors. you are barely old enough to know the names of things. you are barely old enough to speak or laugh or smile. you are barely old enough to see the trees properly. but you are young enough to trust, young enough to believe, young enough to see your clan not as a clan but as a family.

you love your brother and your mother and your father. your mother is beautiful and kind, your father is wise and solemn, your brother is a mirror image of you. both of you are naive and trusting and so, so kind and you can't help it that you're too young.

you are barely old enough to understand. you are barely old enough to understand when your clan leader starts forcing you to fight. you are barely old enough to withstand those blows, barely old enough to fight back.

( and yet you have to. )

your brother dies from a wound inflicted by a warrior and you do not move from his side for fear that he won't ever open his eyes again and the last thing he ever does is blink at you with eyes you can't explain the color of, they're so blue and gray and green and beautiful and you have his eyes too. you are siblings. you're his sister. he's your brother.

and he dies in the middle of the night and they make you get up and fight the next morning like nothing's changed. and you grow to accept it even though you don't want to. even though accepting it means forgetting your brother.

you don't want to forget him.

you see him every time you see yourself.

_i. i don’t know - but if you see her, tell her i’m looking for her. tell her i’ve been searching for her light ever since i succumbed to my darkness. tell her i miss her. tell her i’m sorry. tell her i want her to come home._

you have learned to fight. you survive. you push on and pretend like it doesn't kill you inside. your fur is splattered and matted with blood before you should even be an apprentice. there's a paw suffix to your name before there should be and you've learned to breathe in war when you should still be at your mother's side.

your mother sides against your clan leader because she is so scared and so angry, and she's cast away from the clan or maybe she dies but you don't know and honestly you don't care. you're too young and too old all at the same time and starclan you don't know anymore.

you are young enough to believe it might all change someday and angry enough to force yourself to stop hoping. you stare at your reflection in puddles when it rains and your eyes seem more gray than anything else lately.

your father retreats and your brother is dead and your mother is gone. and yet you push on, push on until the day when your clan leader is cast out of your clan and you are left among the broken, shattered, practically dead kit apprentices. you are left in a clan that is broken.

you're broken. you're used to it.

_ii. i need her. i need her like air, like water, like warmth. i need her like a sheep needs its shepherd. and maybe it’s effed up and hopeless but i still think she might be out there somewhere - maybe dancing in my father’s memory, or laughing with my mother’s ghost._

you're way too young, with scars from your own clanmates and from battles you should not have fought. you've grown to accept that you're going to be stuck in these memories forever, trying to go back, never being able to. the future is in smoke, ablaze, and you don't want to face another day without your family.

your father abandons the clan because he can't look at you anymore because he sees your brother and you feel sick to your stomach because you wish you could change how you look.

get rid of your pelt color, your eyes, your voice, everything. burn it all away because maybe your father would come back if he didn't see his son and your mother and maybe even himself and starclan, can't they do something to change it? can't they fix everything?

if starclan is so real how could they let a clan leader do this to his clanmates?

you can't bring yourself to smile anymore.

_iii. i don’t know where she went, but if she came back today, right now, i’d drop everything and throw my arms around her, embrace her, never let her go - it’s lonely without her smile._

it's hard trying to forget. your clan is trying to atone in their own way, and you are getting older and older. your clanmates stare at you in pity because they let this happen to you and they did this to you and they hate you too because you're a constant reminder. you are a constant reminder that they failed.

you are old enough to recognize the pity and fear on their faces. the hatred and disgust in their eyes. you know those looks because they almost mirror your eyes, if only their eyes were blue-green-gray.

battle is the only thing that stays the same.

your fur is covered in scars and the sky is covered in stars. maybe there is no starclan. maybe you have so much in common with your dead ancestors. maybe your brother is up there right now and you hope he is.

maybe he sees you right now. maybe he's happy. you hope he's happy. you hope he isn't alone, isn't scared.

your dreams consist of the things you can't say in the daytime. they consist of your screams and the stars and your scars and the battles that raged around you when you couldn't even recognize the colors around you. they're not dreams, they're nightmares, one cat says. he wants to help you. he knows how you feel. he knows how scared you are, how scarred you are.

you don't want him to help. you want everything to go away.

_iv. i think she was taken. by my family, by my friends, by the dead. maybe ghosts can’t hear us, but oh god, can i hear them. they’re screaming. she’s screaming._

what is it like to forget?

you've asked yourself a million times if it would be like drowning, if the blankness would surge around you and fill up your lungs and you just wouldn't feel anything anymore. maybe it would be like burning to death: it would consume you in the worst way possible and leave you with nothing.

maybe it would be peaceful.

maybe it would stop the screaming in your dreams.

maybe starclan just doesn't care that you'd rather be in nothingness than with your own clan. your clan is sick and you're not sick and isn't that just terrible? because isn't this your clan, aren't you supposed to be just like them? your clan leader is dying and you aren't.

( the irony. it isn't even irony but you love it. )

starclan, you want to be consumed and you want your lungs to fill up with nothingness because perhaps it would make the regret and pain and the self hatred dissipate. maybe it'd be okay to disappear and forget.

because you want to. and the rest of your clan does, too, even if they don't say anything.

but your clan leader is out there somewhere, alive, and you are everything enough to want him dead. you want vengeance, revenge, justice, whatever the right word is for your brother and your parents because they deserve it even if you don't. even if you let this consume you.

_v. if you find her, can you tell her where to find me? i miss her. and i know i didn’t treat her right, i know i let her down, i know she deserves better, but please, for the love of god, come back to me._

you should try and learn to smile again, you think to yourself.

you really should learn how to smile.

you really should learn how to laugh.

maybe he can help you, maybe your clan can help you, maybe someday you will be able to forget. never forgive - forgiving would mean forgetting everything that happened to your brother. and you can't forget him, not when you see his eyes every time you see yourself.

gray-blue-green.

and your clan is recovering and finally it seems like everything is becoming okay. it seems like your new leader is going to save your clan. there is rain again for the first time in forever. the forest is brightening and it seems like suddenly everything is going to be right again.

but you have memories you shouldn't have.

and you may never recover.

and yet... there's still hope.

_vi. maybe she’s still here. maybe i buried her along time ago._

\- tay yvonne


End file.
